


Chaotic Elements

by nah0nope



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU, Character Study, Drabble, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Kissing, M/M, the next one's a little spoilery .......
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nah0nope/pseuds/nah0nope
Summary: There were always too many layers to this man, at least for Fjord’s tastes. Too many, but too shallow, like the outer, papery layers of a garlic clove. They broke and ripped too quickly, wrapped close to the surface, but there were so many to get through before you saw through.Fjord likes simple. Chaotic, but simple. Honest and earnest and simple and sweet, like a blueberry muffin.Fjord thinks he’s gotten a little lost in his own metaphors. Thinly veiled as they are.A short littleunfinishedexperiment.
Relationships: Fjord & Jester Lavorre, Fjord/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

“Hello, there.”

The accent isn’t as thick as Fjord remembers. It just curls at the edges of the vowels, a little, less so than the version of him in Fjord’s mind. 

“Well, fuck me,” Fjord murmurs as he turns in the stool, bringing the tankard with him. He takes a sip as he takes in the beginning of gray at his temples, at the tip of his chin. “If it isn’t Caleb Widogast.”

Caleb must have leaned in to talk at Fjord’s ear over the din of the tavern. He’s uncomfortably close when Fjord first turns, but they both readjust quickly. “Mr. Fjord. It has been some time,” he says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. They’re hard to read. He was never quite an open book, and Fjord was never quite an avid reader anyway, but he really can’t quite tell what Caleb’s doing here. 

“Yeah, what, five years?” Fjord smiles his tusky smile as he tries to remember. Some of his stints feel as if they were twice as long as that on their own. But this is his fifth time back to Nicodranas, he’s sure. 

“About that, ja.”

Fjord knows Caleb is aware exactly how long it’s been.

Caleb slides into the stool next to Fjord and catches the bartender’s eye with noticeably more poise than Fjord remembers from him. He’s dressed smartly if plainly, in clean and fine materials of muted colors and unfussy cuts. It looks like he’s been doing well for himself since the Nein went their separate ways. “I am glad to have caught you.”

Fjord doesn’t know if he entirely agrees, but he doesn’t entirely disagree either. So he smiles, instead and turns back to lean against the bartop, sipping again from the tankard. 

“How’ve you been?” Fjord asks while Caleb accepts a tankard of his own. “You still teaching?”

“Most of the time,” Caleb hums, turning the mug in his hands without raising it for a drink. “I try to split my time between Rexxentrum and Rosohna evenly, but I do find myself at the academy more often than not.” 

“It suits you,” Fjord says, raising his glass in a slight salute, and they take a drink together. “You always seemed to love teaching.” 

Caleb laughs still like it pains him, like Fjord remembers of him, but he brushes it off casually. “I do like hearing myself talk, ja.”

That catches Fjord off guard and he nearly snorts his next sip. He laughs genuinely, if maybe a little too loud or too long. “That honestly wasn’t what I was getting at, but your words, not mine.” 

Fjord turns again to take in Caleb leaning on his elbows, turning the tankard in circles, circles between his hands. Passing his still surprisingly slender but calloused fingers through the handle with elegant movements that belay his dexterous somatic casting. 

“Veth mentioned you stop by this time every year. I  _ am _ glad to have found time to catch you this time. It has been too long.” Caleb catches and holds Fjord’s eye, and this time they’re a little easier to read. Remorseful and apologetic, but the slight tug at the corners of his mouth reach the crinkles at the edges of his eyes. 

“Yeah,” Fjord agrees a little easier this time. “Haven’t had much time or reason to head inland, sorry.”

Fjord guesses he didn’t come to the coast entirely for Fjord’s benefit, but this is the first time Caleb’s made the trip while Fjord was here. 

“I’ve heard, Veth writes when she has news. You’ve built quite the fleet.” 

Fjord takes a full swallow of the last of the ale and waves for the bartender. “We’ve been lucky, the Wildmother’s been blessing us with clear skies and smooth sailing.” 

“I’m glad to hear you’re still of the faith. Mr. Clay has expressed concerns.”

Fjord raises an eyebrow as Caleb takes his second gentle sip. “You’ve seen Cad?” 

The scrape of the metal tankard against the rough wood bartop seems to startle Caleb slightly, and Fjord wonders where his mind was, just then. There were always too many layers to this man, at least for Fjord’s tastes. Too many, but too shallow, like the outer, papery layers of a garlic clove. They broke and ripped too quickly, wrapped close to the surface, but there were so many to get through before you saw through. 

Fjord likes simple. Chaotic, but simple. Honest and earnest and simple and sweet, like a blueberry muffin. 

Fjord thinks he’s gotten a little lost in his own metaphors. Thinly veiled as they are. 

“He makes his way south sometimes,” Caleb explains, “And I see Beauregard and Yasha about once a month. You’re the only one whose path has been somewhat hard to cross.”

“Hmm,” Fjord hums, starting on the forth tankard. “Like I said, haven’t had—”

“No, nein, I know,” Caleb cuts him off, leaning in, eyebrow tilted in apology. “I’m the one who has no trouble getting where I need to go. It is on me.”

Fjord smiles softly at that, at his simple and seemingly earnest admission. “How is Yusa, by the way? Haven’t heard from him in a good while.”

“Ah…” Caleb takes another drink, deeper than the first two. “Grumpy.” 

_ But you’re grumpy, too, Caleb. _

Fjord can hear her voice as clear as day. 

This isn’t uncommon. 

Ordinarily, it isn’t unwelcome: her preposterous opinions and wayward advice and occasional, total bullshit that creeps into his head. He knows it is, doubtless, a little odd, but he also is fully aware it isn’t her. His mind isn’t riddled with holes he has filled desperately with her. So he lets the ghost be as it roosts gently and delicately in his head. 

Ordinarily.

Tonight, though — no matter what tomorrow means or is or does — isn’t ordinary, so he doesn’t indulge in her memory for more than a blink. 

“Sounds about what I remember,” he chuckles, and Caleb joins him. 

  
  


They talk together, their combined social crudeness lubricated by drinks that keep coming, about the big things and the little things of their past five years. 

It really isn’t that long, five years. In the scheme of things, it is only a hair away from being a tenth of his and Caleb’s lives. But it feels like an age in this context, listening to Caleb’s stories. Of students, and expeditions, and studies, of books read and written. Some of those stories he knows. It’s the new ones that really hammer home how much life can really happen in five years. 

However long they sit there, getting drunk and passing tales, Fjord can’t tell you. An age, an hour, it doesn’t feel like long but it seems to linger on forever.

It doesn’t feel at all strange when Caleb suddenly grabs at his fingers, sloppily and stupidly finding his feet and pulling Fjord up with him. Fjord doesn’t hear music, but he supposes Caleb does, as he gracelessly leads Fjord around and around the room to some soundless rhythm, some silent melody. 

No one in this back alley, dockside tavern joins them in their slurred waltz. There are some rambunctious cheers or jeers or  _ something _ and the clank of tankards coming from somewhere in the blur of colors as they spin, but the cramped spaces amidst the tables remains a dancefloor for two alone. 

Fjord is laughing, he distantly recognizes, and Caleb is, too. Fjord has thoroughly forgotten that he cannot read this wizard’s motives. Frankly, he has forgotten it was a thing he should do, could do. This feels simple. 

This feels honest and earnest and simple and sweet. Dancing to whatever song is in Caleb’s head, laughing like it’s their own private joke. Chaotic, but simple.

Tumbling, finally, into — what exactly, Fjord doesn’t know, he is ass over teakettle over something pokey and uncomfortable and so is Caleb, and Caleb’s freckles are hidden in the absolute scarlet of his complexion and there are actual tears beading at the fine lines around his eyes with how hard they are laughing. 

Tumbling, finally, into whatever, it also feels simple. Being tossed out literally on his ass, cackling to the stars as Caleb follows soon after, that too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't written in years, but the bug bit. I super duper don't have time, so I'm posting this unfinished so it hopefully quits nagging at me for right now. Would love to finish it in the future when I have more time.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

The walk to the Lavish Chateau begins simply, as well, until the clean sea air becomes too sobering. 

It isn’t a quick journey from the quay, and Nicodranas is winding. Ordinarily, Fjord sleeps on the  _ Ball Eater II _ , whenever he’s docked in Nicodranas. He’s been to see Marion every year, Fjord’s even stayed for a number of her performances. But Fjord can’t imagine putting Caleb up on his ship, and can’t imagine forcing him to walk back alone. So he joins him. 

The night air appears to have less effect on Caleb as it does on Fjord. He is humming, occasionally one-twoing, and the song they had danced to isn’t half-bad in Fjord’s opinion, now that he can hear it. The night of drinking still leaves Fjord’s chest warm and his head a little off-axis, but he’s free to watch again. To think about tomorrow. To wonder after. 

And while Caleb is still only just enjoying his simple night, Fjord has to start trying to peel back the layers again. 

Their arrival is met only by the bellhop, who smiles strainedly but politely as Caleb attempts a number of pockets before finding the correct one with his room key. And, eventually, Fjord has Caleb at his door. 

“Yes, you will stay the night,” he says, apropo of nothing.

Fjord cannot read his drink and sleep heavy eyes nor his friendly but firmly final tone as he pushes open the door, already shirking out of his overcoat. 

“I should real—” 

_ “Ja, _ you will stay, come in,” he deftly cuts Fjord’s rebuttal at the pass. “You walked all the way here, it is fine. We can drink, still, or sleep. Or talk, anything.”

Fjord sighs. He hasn’t looked at Fjord since waltzing into the room depositing his coat onto the chair, loosening the straps on his holsters. 

Fjord thinks to say  _ sure _ or  _ fine _ as he decides that, yeah, it is a long walk back, and yeah, he can stay. But it feels redundant on his tongue, ja, he will stay. So he merely walks in and gently, for the sake of the hour, closes the door behind him. 

“Gut,” Caleb says, still unbuckling one of the straps at his side, spinning still to his waltz, but slowly. Fjord catches the smile on his lips as he tugs at his own jacket.

It’s a soft kiss, just barely a brush of lips. It catches Fjord off kilter, like the entire evening has. 

He really expects Caleb to back away once Fjord freezes, to murmur a soft apology or maybe just smile his sad smile, but instead Fjord watches as he stays close. Caleb watches back from a breath away, taking in the furrow of Fjord’s brows, the twitch of his lips where Fjord can’t decide what to say. 

He isn’t pressing, but Caleb isn’t running either. He’s waiting, quietly and patiently with such a neutral expression, for one outcome or the other before he moves again.

Fjord doesn’t exactly know what makes his hands move, but he feels Caleb’s ribs through the layers of his shirts all the same. It takes less than two steps before Caleb’s back is against the wall. There is more distance, now, between them. Fjord can see more clearly—the exact blue of his eyes, the way they widen slightly, the way his mouth parts just a little, how surprisingly soft his lips look now, how healthy he looks compared to the man he knew five years, a decade ago. 

Fjord doesn’t know if he’s pushing him away or not, and he thinks Caleb can see this indecision on his face. His head hurts in that way when you try to think too hard in circles about something, when your brow and cheeks feel tight. He doesn’t understand Caleb, never has, and he has never really known how to  _ feel _ about that. 

And here, Caleb waits. Fjord doesn’t know why. Fjord doesn’t know why he kissed him, and he doesn’t know why he’s waiting so patiently now. It doesn’t match his mental image of him. It doesn’t match what he knows, what he remembers of the man—timid and hurt and quiet, and Fjord doesn’t know how he feels about that, exactly. 

He thinks he might like it, that uncertainty it gives him. The layers. The way they brittlely break apart under his touch and the way they cling to his skin.

He knows his lips look soft, though. 

This kiss is certainly rougher than the first. The first was a test, in its way. Caleb’s small little question mark against Fjord’s lips. This one is too, as Fjord drags tongue and teeth and tusk against Caleb’s soft lips, against his tongue, as he presses hard and fast into Caleb’s space, pins his slender frame against the wall. Fjord wants to know if this is really what Caleb wants, if he really and truly expected this and if he really and truly was prepared. 

Caleb’s gasp, the slight inhale Fjord can feel more than hear, tells him maybe not. But the way Caleb’s hands find the back of Fjord’s neck, the way his fingers quickly glide through the fine short hairs at the back of his head, tells him maybe, just maybe, so. 

  
  


The act is unbearably awkward, drunk, fumbling, uncertain, and messy. 

Simultaneously, it is the first spray of the ocean after weeks of nothing but cobblestone and sand and dirt and grass beneath his feat. It is the taste of salt on the air, or the low, lulling creaks of timber and plank at night against the backdrop of waves thudding against the hull. 

It is frightening, and it is familiar. It is sacred, and it is right. 

It feels right, unbearably right to be here, with him, pressing chaste kisses and vulgar bites along his collarbone and throat and chest and anywhere that Fjord’s mouth can reach without pulling away. All the places he can touch without letting go of the of the skin-to-skin contact against his chest and abdomen, beneath Fjord’s forearms where they meet the small of his back and his too-prominent shoulder blade, where he can feel every twitch and shudder and breath that resonates from deep within him. 

This is terrifying. Fjord is terrified. 

Caleb does not collapse so much as crumble in stages. Fjord can feel each muscle loosen and yield and mold until Fjord has a pliant jumble of a man in his lap and adhered to his skin. 

Fjord cannot find it in himself to make any move to break whatever spell he feels he is under. The sweat at the crook of Caleb’s neck — where Fjord has selfishly hidden away against, lips still but firmly lingering against his pulse — is well on its way to being cool and dry and the thundering heartbeat beneath his kiss is almost entirely back to a normal rate before Caleb shifts again. At first, it is just his hands, the contradictory delicate and calloused fingers tracing nimble circles, circles, circles into Fjord’s shoulders. Then his head, as he rolls it to bump against Fjord’s temple, pressing comfortably into him, the rough stubble on his cheeks tickling Fjord’s ear. Then finally his legs, his thighs as he slowly and bonelessly begins to lift himself off. 

The spell is broken, Fjord fears. He joins Caleb in detangling, pulling his face from its hiding spot and shifting to help Caleb free himself — until Caleb’s legs, now out from under him, wrap languidly, almost casually, around Fjord instead of disappearing. 

“Oh,” punches out of Fjord like a gasp.

He blinks as those nimble fingers find and tangle with the longer hairs at his crown and neither gently nor roughly guide his head back. “Mein Gott, ich vermisste dich,” Caleb murmurs as he presses his forehead to Fjords, soft and low, like a prayer. Something private and reverent, and Fjord doesn’t understand enough to fully grasp its meaning. 

Fjord stares as well as he can at how close Caleb is. At the long, individual lashes that are too near to not blur a little against the paleness of his cheeks. The redness in his lips. The handsomeness in the slight downward turn of his nose and the lines framing his mouth. 

Fjord finds himself at a loss. He, once again, doesn’t know what this man wants or is or is looking for. 

But the fluttering of his lashes, the softness of his breath against Fjord’s lips and chin, this feels too raw to be anything other than simple. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, whoops, I still don't have time but hey look. It didn't stop nagging.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
